MovieChat Forums > American Graffiti (1973) Discussion > This movie is depressing for people who ...

This movie is depressing for people who were born in a much later age


This movie left me with an extremely nostalgic-like feeling, even though it can't be nostalgia because I wasn't even born back then. It's like this movie glorified the place and time in which it takes place to such an extent that I actually want to be there, while making me resent my own generation (social media, globalization, financial crisis, individualisation). It leaves me feeling sort of sad inside... Am I alone in this, or is anyone with me?

BTW sorry for the rash generalization in the title, had to attract attention I guess.

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[deleted]

These were not all that small of towns. I mean Turlock is smaller, but the cities referenced Stockton & Modesto aren't that small, smaller in the 60's than now, but not a western dirt town. Now if you live in a big city anywhere in LA area, San Francisco or other bigger cities, it would certainly seem small. That is what made it fun to cruise, you knew most of the kids, then you could always find someone new out on the cruising lanes. Good Times!

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Its actually filmed in Petaluma, much smaller than modesto which is the "setting."

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Modesto wasn't that small. There were much smaller towns where all the kids did the same thing. I lived 30 miles from Sacramento, and when nothing was doing in my town we went to Sac. to cruise Mels or whatever else was going on. If you grew up in SFO or LA that would have been a lot different. So many suburbs. But, generally they did the same thing. Had their regular hangouts. I'm probably the oldest one posting about this subject. I'm younger than George Lucas, but not by much. I wouldn't have traded my teenage years for anything. After 1965 things changed. Everyone here will have a different opinion, they are entitled to it. All I can say for me, is it was a great time. No high tech stuff, but it was still good. We had more personal contact with friends and others. It was a safer time, for that I'm so thankful.

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It was a safer time, for that I'm so thankful.


Crime statistics will prove you to be wrong on that account. In spite of what certain politicians and news-outlets wish you to believe, crime rates are down and low and still falling.

People are now being told lies about crime (and terrorism for that matter) since it fits in so well with certain political agendas.

People in the Western industrialized countries are very safe and have little cause to fear. The US may have a higher rate of deaths by firearms, but that is because of the utter refusal to tackle the problem of gun ownership. But since the US doesn't treat gun ownership as a potential problem, that is a problem of their own making.

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That was seven years ago. In 2023 it's a different story. Crime is out of control, especially in big cities, the result of policies of people with certain political agendas.

As far as gun ownership is concerned, at the time "American Graffiti" was set, anybody could order guns and ammunition through the mail, no questions asked. Lots of boys, teenage and younger, owned .22 rifles. There were very few gun control laws. Yet school shootings and mass shootings in general were extraordinarily rare. Guns and ammo are much, much harder to get now, and there are countless gun laws, yet we hear about mass shootings every day, and the gun death rate in places like Chicago is astronomical. Something has caused this change, but it obviously isn't because of guns.

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Crime is out of control, especially in big cities, the result of policies of people with certain political agendas.


And this is based on... What exactly? *Actual* crime, statistics, actual witness accounts from people the so-called "big cities" with "political agendas" you mention? (neither of which you have bothered to specify)...
Or is it purely your "feelings" and personal perceptions?...

Considering the jarring contrast between bold claims and lack of facts and very vague, lazy descriptions, I'm gonna go with the latter and hard pass on your immature, irresponsible trust me bro rhetoric.

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No high tech stuff, but it was still good.


I'm probably a little bit younger than you but not by much and would have been eight or nine years old in the time when that American Graffiti is set in. I had a friend who has passed away now but he went through his teens in the forties and always used to say, "Back when things were good." We got to experience some of those good times and to see how they suffocated as the government and other busybodies began to control everything in our lives. I am thankful to have at least a taste of what life in this country used to be. And I am with those born much later than myself who feel depressed when watching this film.

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Yes, OP... I share the exact same sentiments. I don't, however, mind being young still.



Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!

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I always feel nostalgic when watching this movie because I was a teenager in the 1950s(born in 1943). I didn't live in a small town, but was a teenager in The Bronx. My friends and I used to hang out in the playground in the projects where I lived. We had our boom boxes on to Alan Freed, and we would also go to the Alan Freed Rock 'n' Roll shows held at the Brooklyn Paramount(taking the subway to Brooklyn). Those were the days!

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I was born in 1973 (the year the movie was released) and feel the same odd nostalgia for that period that I shouldn't have. Perhaps I just think of my parents' generation much more than I think of my own. It would be cool to be a rebel kid like Milner with a classic car but that can still be done today in any high school in America. Plenty had those kind of hotrods in the late 80s/early 90s when I was in high school.

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Hmm, you are about a high school and college education older than me, but I had a greaser uncle... (my father's youngest brother)

The movie seems to be right in the middle of you and I as far as age and experience goes. I did have a high school teacher that had a student draft deferment and maybe something for teaching, but he talked about Viet Nam and Canada and his 6 month pregnant wife. One week, he didn't come in for class and we had a sub teacher. The "word" was out by lunch break that he took his first kid, pregnant wife, and headed for Canada. We were "treated" to visits from some of our local military folks that came to address the high school students and answer questions as someone who "was there". The military guys also got two extra days of leave for doing the visits, so we had a lot.
The army guy that visited my class was missing some of his left pinky finger, had scars visible on the left side of his face, and said he lost his hearing in the left ear when a VC mortar round landed just away from him on his left. He was recuperating from his wounds... He also talked about some experiences he had as an MP with "the big white target on his head". He was almost six feet tall and said he was shoulders and head above the Vietnamese, so he was QUITE visible. One day he was on duty in Da Nang, wearing a flak jacket, and he said he was hit in the chest by a .45 round, and bodily thrown across the street by the impact. When he got up off the ground, he said there was no one looking around, running away, or anything out of the ordinary...

This movie, AG, seemed to be set **just before** that time. Korea had happened, and the USA had halted the invaders (as it was portrayed), but none of our parents were involved in that, so, our parents were part of the generation that saved the world from faschism, and took back Europe! And north Africa! And lots of islands in the Pacific! We still thought we could do **anything**!!
BTW, one of the other visits our school had (before the military visitors) was from some of the NASA people, and they brought a 4-inch square of the material that made the Echo satellite, and had the two strongest guys try to tear it... Impossible, it was two layers of mylar over an aluminum core. (Think of today's mylar helium balloons, but thicker.)

I also remember some of the nightly weather forecasts tracking the fallout clouds from the above ground nuclear tests in Nevada... The weatherman was warning parents to try to keep the kids in the house for several hours, and if necessary, make sure they/we wore hats if we had to venture outside during those hours... (midwest area, where the prevailing winds (jet stream) blew the fallout across the USA).

**Maybe** one of the reasons the movie has an appeal is because almost everyone could work on a car back then, and actually make some improvements. Now, there isn't much an ordinary person can even touch on a car engine, (just TRY to even find the spark plugs on a ten year old car now...). Back in the day, a person could put their hand directly on almost any part of an engine, but not any more. Stuff is much more crowded and complex, and people are no longer accustomed to the kind of work where your hands actually get dirty and greasy.

Simpler times, a better outlook on life, dreams for their futures, and jobs for almost everyone willing to work. Who wouldn't be nostalgic for those days?

And you need to remember too that there were alcoholics, but few "hard drug" addicts. On the negative side, people wrote songs with lyrics like "will you still need me when I'm 64?". People didn't live as long, and hospitals didn't have the technology and means to prolong life/suffering, and kids got in trouble at school for rolling up their jeans' cuffs or waistbands (girl's skirts made shorter). *smile* And getting in trouble on the school grounds involved smoking cigarettes, kissing under the bleachers, or fistfights...

My wife didn't want to teach high school kids because the kids had real weapons in the schools, and there were known crackhouses across the street from the football practice fields...
(BTW, we were about 5 years apart in age, and my wife was an only child, but she had the entitlement mentality, while I had the "work for what you want" outlook.)

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Simpler times, a better outlook on life, dreams for their futures, and jobs for almost everyone willing to work. Who wouldn't be nostalgic for those days?


Um...Black people?

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Simpler times, a better outlook on life, dreams for their futures, and jobs for almost everyone willing to work. Who wouldn't be nostalgic for those days?



Um...Black people?


It's much easier to say that only white people have nostalgia for those days. Back then, all minorities were treated bad, and that is saying it politely.

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I didn't say that only white people have nostalgia for those days. My reply "Um....black people?" (the rest was a quote from someone else, so....not fair to quote me along with that like it's all mine even though i doubt that twas your intention)

Of course all sorts of types from all sorts of walks of life might be nostalgic for those days, or times that never existed. Nostalgia has a way of putting a rose-colored hue on everything, matching the glasses more-often-than-not. So....I have nothing to disagree with what you said, just wondering if you thought i was implying something that I wasn't or not, that's all :)

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Good grief no, I wasn't implying anything. If anything, I thought your remark was one of the few that put some common sense perspective into all the otherwise glassy-eyed and glowing love remarks for a past that wasn't all that it is cracked up to be.

I agree with you 100%. There are many many people and social groups that have no cause at all to be nostalgic for the 60s or 50s ...

I also edited my first post so there is less confusion about the quotes.

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It's much easier to say that only white people have nostalgia for those days. Back then, all minorities were treated bad, and that is saying it politely.


Add women/females, women/females of color, LGBTQ population, pacifists, poor, non-capitalists, etc. Pretty much anyone not a cis,, white, hetero, privileged male.

All these people waxing nostalgic for a time that only *they* would've benefitted make me sick.
Esp. the ones who didn't actually EXPERIENCE the time period, so they're literally talking out their asses. I want to slap the shit out of these latter losers in particular!

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Shut up, Loxist BIGOT!

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Just got done sampling some of your post history...Yikes. You really don't have any guts for the internet... You're better off either staying off of it or just stick to rest of your low IQ, lowlife echo chamber. 👍

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Piss off, 147 post NEWB.

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Yeah... You're a waste of time and space... I'm just going to report you and hope the moderators do what they're supposed to.

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Looks like YOU'RE the one with no guts threatening to cry to the Mods.

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Nah...

First of all, that wasn't a threat. I have reported you.

Secondly, you're whining about me "[crying] to the mods" as if I am supposed to have some weird loyalty toward you or... Idk shield(?) you from consequences... All the while you're attempting to insult me? You're very delusional...

3rd- I am perfectly capable of eviscerating you verbally if that's what you mean by "guts..." That wasn't the context I was using it in though...
The fact that you couldn't even understand that much shows you're not worth any invested engagement. *That's* why I'm having the mods take over from here.

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You're quite a stupid little insect.

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Cry harder JERK.

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So, you have a sock account? Most cowards need them.

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The only stink of "stupid" and "[coward]" on here is all you. No one else.

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Sure, because another person couldn't possibly think you're a jerk 🙄

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Maddy-17, it must have been different for you in NY. I always associate the movie the "Wanderers" with what I would imagine the 60's would have been like for those of you on the East Coast. We didn't have those great Alan Freed shows here in CA. At least I don't think so, unless it was in the LA area. I live closer to San Francisco, and don't ever remember Alan Freed ever being out here. I liked the 70's movie "American Hot Wax" that showed the great show at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, made me wish I could have been there. I would have been way too young. Loved my youth, and wish I could have it back.

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Dear god yes! I have an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia for this era (and just about anything classic Hollywood, pre- and post-WWII, even 40s/50s film noir) and I was born in 1986! But then again, we are really the last generation to grow up on Nick-at-Nite (I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Gilligan's Island, All in the Family, Happy Days, Brady Bunch, the B&W Lassie show etc.) and to be conditioned on classic movies (I'm 27, and EVERYBODY my age grew up watching Wizard of Oz, despite it being a 50+ year old movie). Of course, I grew up watching 90s Nickelodeon kids series, but since these classic shows were syndicated on the same channel, you inevitably watched the classics as well.

Even though I never watched the original 1933 King Kong, Casablanca or Hitchcock's Psycho as a child, the image of the stop-motion ape fighting off biplanes on the Empire State Building, the airport ending scene from Casablanca and the Psycho shower scene have been permanently imprinted in my brain since early childhood. Mostly, due to ubiquitous pop culture references in cartoons (even Nickelodeon cartoons had endless references to classic movies) and the fact that most movie channels on tv during the 80s to mid 90s played classic movies nonstop.

I guess what also contributes to this phenomena is the fact that the 80s was the inception of the home video market. Like any kid of that era, I was brought up on Star Wars, E.T., Indiana Jones, Batman '89 and various other 80s/early 90s kids' movies. Since this was the beginning for home video, when our parents went to buy these "new" movies for us kids (like Batman '89) as they were first being released on VHS, this was also the first time that many classic movies were released for home viewership (like Wizard of Oz). My pop would go buy Who Framed Roger Rabbit and he'd also notice West Side Story was a "new" release on the video rack. So he'd end up buying both. That would explain how we grew up on both contemporary films AND classic films simultaneously. Same with classic music being played on the radio.

Talk to kids today. They generally have ZERO interest in films/tv/music from 5 decades ago, or hell even media from 2 decades ago. Everything today is about what's new, new, new. If you wanna see a classic movie, you need to tune to TCM or listen to NPR to hear a good oldies song.

We didn't grow up in those eras, but images and audials from those eras have been ingrained in our collective memory. It's such a unique phenomena.




Religion should be made fun of. If I believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself. -Larry David

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@matthijs_smits-802-533771

Yes I totally feel you! I actually started a very similar thread in the Happy Days boards page here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070992/board/thread/221050662

I too love all the 1950's music, diners, nostalgia and am a big fan of all of that.

I was born in 1979 so I was basically a kid in the 1980's but I loved Happy Days reruns and Back to The Future for all the 1950's nostalgia!

I also love eating at 50's diners!

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I get the opposite feeling. I didn't experience it in reality so the pleasing, nostalgic elements can be enjoyed free of any of the possible downsides.

Looking back now I can adopt the same nostalgic attitude towards my own coming of age period ('94 would be my '62) if I ignore all the BS that you went through or as a kid in that era or was going on at that time. I prefer to co-opt '60s nostalgia as it's less dishonest, I guess.




@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority

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Are you kidding? I call the 1990s "The Nuthin' Nineties". Very little will be remembered from then, unlike the Fabulous Fifties and The Sensational Sixties. Sure there are newbies who came of age in 1994 and think there were some good things in it (but don't blink or you'll miss them!)... but in the Big Picture, it had all been done already. Aside from the occasional new exception, the years 1900 - 1980 were simply the best and most innovative, creative, and best period of Entertainment.

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The whole point of American Grafitti was that it was a moment in time and that everything was very soon to change. It's not about how the fifties and sixties were the greatest.

People of that generation would probably agree that they hold the greatest fondness for the music and culture of that time, naturally because it reminds them of their youth, but very few that I know think that they were the be-all-end-all of human existence. They are more likely to envy the perceived opportunities that they might have if they'd grown up now rather than then.

Likewise I can look back at the early nineties and remember the coming of age of electronic music (in Europe), pre the flood of digital media and, more importantly, pre-Facebook and cellphones etc as a special moment in time.

I remember that at that time getting into classic movies was a completely different prospect back then. American Grafitti wasn't as well know as Star Wars, of course, so it wasn't like it was on TV all the time. I remember having to seek it out at art cinemas or cinema clubs (i.e. people at university who had a laserdisc player and a projector) and when I watched it I thought then exactly as the OP does.

With a bit of perspective, it seems daft to be depressed about being born in a later time.

@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority

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1990s = "The Nuthin' Nineties".

2000s = "The Zeroes".

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Uhm.... E = mc²

So I was right. You just don't understand what I'm talking about.


@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority

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I understand fully. You feel it's all relative, and to some degree that's maybe true. But I always read a lot of young people online who wish they were part of the past and were born earlier. Even if a very young person has favorites from today, it's highly unlikely that those things will have any resonance or "classic status" in the future, like so much classic entertainment has from 1920 - 1980.

You mentioned the point of AMERICAN GRAFFITI being about a moment in time, and then things changing. The whole thing is, times at least moved on back then, and new amazing things were always coming up! 1940 was different from the 1950's... 1962 was very different from 1967. And 1967 was very different from 1977. And then the 1980s were different from the '70s.. ... But TODAY, it all feels exactly the same. Except for the over-presence of dumb phones, I can't see and hear many cultural differences or entertainment changes from 1994 to 2014. It's like it is just one long, unchanging year.

I saw AG in the theater when I was about 11, and it seemed like such a long time ago, a completely different world with styles, cars, and music that looked and felt like it was 50 years or more ago; but truth was, it was only depicting a world of 11 years past! Today in 2014 you could make a movie about 2003, and nothing would look or feel any different. Same if you made a film about 1998. All you'd have to do is perhaps take everyone's cell phone away and not have them walking around in their own bubbles staring down into them - that's the only difference. The styles, movies, music, and TV programming would seem identical.

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No I don't feel that being depressed as a result of watching this film is relative to how you assess the culture in your own coming of age period.

As far as the mainstream goes I'd broadly agree with you in terms of popular culture's evolution in the past twenty years. But there's more to culture than the mainstream, which is arguably where you'd place the kind of youth pop culture as seen in AG that we're talking about here.

Like I said. I was envious of people my parent's generations's age, well American ones anyway, when I saw this film for the first time in about '92 or '93. Perhaps even depressed, which a cultural phenomenon with that much cache and that is tantalising yet tangible in the form of AG is bound to make you. With a bit of perspective though and in spite of still having great enthusiasm for those times, being depressed because I was 15 in '92 instead of '62 seems rather silly.

At the end of the day, I don't think teenagers have changed all that much since then. Broadly related, If you haven't seen it already I'd recommend The Worlds End. The characters in that try to relive (in the present day) an equivalent AG night from 1990 because one of them can't let go. It's definitely inspired by AG. I am positive that there are 15 or 16 year old kids who have seen that who might be envious, even depressed, after seeing that movie.


@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority

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This is a great thread, among the best I've ever seen on IMDB. Marmaduke is being very reasonable and has thought this all out very well.

Here's the thing: I think everyone will feel nostalgic about their high school years as they get older. They're the last time of innocence for everyone. I'm 44 now and graduated in 1988. When I think back to the average night I realize now that I had no idea how good I had it back then. Everyone was young and relatively happy. I had my whole life ahead of me, and although there was drama and disagreements or whatever else sometimes, it was a time of discovery for everyone.

I was at a funeral for a parent of my best friend growing up a few years ago, and ended up talking to someone there about how hard it is seeing everyone's parents die. He said something very good that holds true for a lot of people (at least those who are lucky enough to get through the first part of their life without feeling serious loss). The first part of your life you gain things, and in the second part you start losing them. That's about as true as you get.

American Graffiti captures that feeling of innocence really well for those of us that grew up in relatively small towns. Your world is that town, and you know it like the back of your hand. Everything is fairly predictable and unchanging, but it can't stay that way forever. There's a moment for everyone when you realize that you can't keep it. When I left for college, my best friend growing up came by the house just before I left, and when I got in the car it really hit me that a page was being turned. That's Curt looking out the window, and it's an overwhelming feeling.

The big difference with American Graffiti though is that America was losing that same innocence, and times were truly simpler and more straightforward. Everyone deep down just wants to live in a time when home really means home.

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Hobokenart, that's a very poignant post, well said.

I just watched American Graffiti for the third time last night and indeed, nostalgia for the past has been running high in my thoughts.

Our youthful days are never as rosy as they might seem...when we look back at them decades latter. American Graffiti is like some make shift-time machine, allowing us to revisit our idyllic youthful past.

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Well said hobokenart, I'm many years older than you and those feeling become even more haunting when you try to go back and the buildings, business and people are gone. It really does become an Ironweed moment.

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An important thing about American Grafitti is that it doesn't explicitly show the change happening or about to happen but that the feeling that things are about to change is formidable. I think that just about any audience should get that feeling, knowing what we know about late 20th century history and the way that world looks now compared to as it is in the movie.

There's a key line in the movie that seems kinda throwaway but sort of sums up the feeling that the OP is prehaps trying to put across about feeling depressed about the way things because of the way things seemd to be.

John Milner - "Rock and Roll's been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died."


So there you have it. One of the characters in the film is having this exact same converstaion as we're having. People have probably been thinking the same things for millenia.


Glasgow's FOREMOST authority Italics = irony. Infer the opposite please.

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I was 20 the first time I felt I had "turned the page" when I left home and started working for a living in '93 so that would have been my 1962 moment. Clinton replaced Bush Sr and big hair 1980 bands got kicked to the curb by grunge bands like Nirvana which was similar to 1978 when established bands got pushed aside by the Sex Pistols..nothing to do with the movie I know but thought I'd throw that in as another parallel.

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I was 20 the first time I felt I had "turned the page" when I left home and started working for a living in '93 so that would have been my 1962 moment. Clinton replaced Bush Sr and big hair 1980 bands got kicked to the curb by grunge bands like Nirvana which was similar to 1978 when established bands got pushed aside by the Sex Pistols..nothing to do with the movie I know but thought I'd throw that in as another parallel


I didn't feel any change there whatsoever. Things are so stagnant in recent decades that you could tell me today is still 1993 or 2003, and I'd believe it. The only difference is, today everyone's got dumbphones glued to their hands.

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[deleted]

No smartphones back then to constantly look at and run into poles with but they were too big to put in your pocket. The nineties had better music than today.

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The nineties had better music than today.


You think that is a nostalgic statement, but it's not really. Thinking in too small a time frame.

If you want better music, then the 1920s were at the top. No question at all. But, here's the thing, in our time now, someone interested in 1920s music can hear more 1920s music than someone living back then could. People were very constricted and limited by (lack of) technology back then. We are now living in an age when much of the culture of previous ages lies at our fingertips.

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I was born in 1961, and I remember the 90s as a golden age of TV sitcoms. First there was Seinfeld which raised the bar and then there was much influence after that. I gave up on pop music in the 90s though, an entire era or eon, in my mind, ended at the end of the 80s that could be dated back to the 50s. I hate 80s TV shows. Soupy video looking as well, the once great Lucille Ball could do no wrong on television, but she attempted a comeback in the 80s on television, made on video, which died a very early death.
What's most good about AG to me, is that it is entirely about what it *seems* to be about, not dressing up with cinematography or anything else, as is the present depressing trend in movies. Too much driving around you notice when watching a few times.
There is a word for all this, 'becoming', while something is new and changing it's good, once development is finished, it seems less is left to be revealed. A new mindset is needed to deal with that, except we might get instead that only the 'new' is valued.
I wanted to add also that people on this thread seem to not mention how important the music in the movie was. I remember seeing the soundtrack album all around the place back in the day. And you know of course that the 70s was a time of 50s nostalgia. This movie seems also about the end of the 50s rock and roll era, and just before The Beatles era. So it comes with its own nostalgia for the 50s.

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Matthijs, I know what you mean. I get that feeling whenever I watch any period movie, and I'm 29 years old. I resent social media, because it just makes everything so damn impersonal.

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I was born 1984 and loved growing up then , hate now. But love the 1950s feel and kinda glad i werent about cause id miss it too much

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loulou1992, Glad you can appreciate the 50's & 60's. I do miss what were to me the GOOD OLD DAYS. I would love to have the DeLorean to go "Back to the Future". It was a safer time. I agree with others here about cell phones and social media, we didn't have it and got by just fine. Of course our phones were connected to a wall, but we weren't deprived. We just called friends to find out what was going on, and proceeded to do our thing. We didn't need to know all the details of everyone's day. Too much info out there now.

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